Of Compass Needles and Separate Missions
by SabbyStarlight
Summary: Mac and Jack end up on separate missions with different partners and Mac suffers the consequences


**Hey, y'all! Confession time: I am absolutely terrible about labeling anything that I'm writing. I have a whole folder of MacGyver fics that aren't finished yet, some of them just need an hour for me to edit and post and others are literally only a few lines of dialogue that I needed to write down before I forgot them. And all these fics are labeled totally random things. For example, the first five in that folder are labeled: MJ, Compound Fractures Suck, Snakebite Owww, Sugar, and That One Fic I REALLY Need to Finish. Yeah, you get the idea. Anyway, I'm reading Ridley's amazing new story Paid in Full (seriously, if you haven't read it yet, stop reading mine and go do so. You won't regret it, its brilliant.) and I got to thinking about the fic I wrote that was also kinda a tag to Compass (Mac and Jack on missions with different partners and the obviously bad consequences) and I couldn't remember what I titled it. So I go looking through my published works and it isn't on Ao3 or FF! It has been sitting in my WiP folder totally complete, ready to be shared with the world. Since June. Sigh**

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This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't supposed to happen. Those words echoed through Jack Dalton's mind on an endless loop as the car bringing him from the airport to the Phoenix headquarters finally reached its destination. His boots hit the ground before the car was in park and he headed immediately toward the staircase as he entered the building, not wanting to wait on the elevator. His earlier exhaustion forgotten, he quickly bounded up the steps, checking each doorway he passed, making sure he didn't pass up the one labeled medical.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," he muttered, this time out loud, making a note that if his partner were here Mac would be cracking a joke about Jack talking to himself, getting senile in his old age. But Mac wasn't here, and that was the problem.

They didn't do this job unless they were together. The two men had joined DXS together and had every intention of leaving together, if the time ever called for it. It was an unspoken rule they followed and anyone who had ever worked with them understood why. Their partnership was somewhat legendary in the Phoenix Foundation, and was something most other agents had no desire to interfere with.

Earlier that week though, a team working a job in Berlin had one of their men taken out with a serious injury and were in serious need of more manpower. Preferably someone with muscle and weapons training Maddy had called Jack and he had gone happily.

The job had gone off without a hitch, thanks to him, and he and the rest of the team were on the plane returning home when a rather lengthy text from Riley had appeared on his phone.

Okay, don't freak out on me, I'm not supposed to be telling you this, but Mac's hurt. He's gonna be fine, he said he's just a little banged up, no point in worrying you, but I thought you should know. I haven't seen him but whatever's wrong is bad enough that he's in Phoenix Med.

One very frantic call to Maddy later, he had the whole story. How she had an anti-terrorism team in South America who had stumbled across a bomb on their latest mission, she had called Mac into the office hoping he could walk the other agents through disarming the device via video call. When he couldn't, the young man had hopped on a plane and took care of the problem himself. Everything had gone fine until the group was jumped exiting the compound the bomb had been located in and Mac had been taken hostage. They had gotten him back quickly, but not before the bad guys had gotten in a few good hits.

The last hour of that plane ride had been the longest of Jack's life, which is why he insisted on heading straight to his partner's side instead of the mandatory post mission debrief in the war room. He found the door marked "medical" and pushed it open, taking half a second to glance at his reflection in the small window. Dirty clothes and disheveled hair, a smear of some unidentified substance that had long ago dried on his temple, facial hair more of a full beard than scruff at this point, but his eyes were determined and focused.

"Angus MacGyver." He said in leiu of greeting when he stopped the first nurse he saw. "Where is he?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, if you could just," she began, her eyes warily taking in his haggard appearance and holding out a placating hand. Jack cut her off instantly.

"Angus. MacGyver." He repeated again. "He's my partner. He's here. He's hurt. Tell me which room he's in or I'm gonna start knocking on doors till I find him myself."

"I'm really not supposed to," she tried again but something in Jack's expression stopped her. She sighed. "Fourth door down on the left."

Jack nodded, and walked past her without another word, his mind entirely focused on getting to his partner.

He took a breath before turning the door handle leading into Mac's room, regretting how hastily he had dismissed the nurse. He would have liked a heads up on what exactly to expect on the other side of that room, but he was mere feet away from his partner. No turning back now.

His eyes darted around the room, noting the lack of major medical equipment as a good sign. No heart monitors or ventilators or traction rigs, only an IV pole with a line leading to the figure in the bed.

Mac was on his side, upper arm in a sling, with more bruises on his face than unmarred skin. Among the bruises though, was a sliver of open blue eyes, and that sight alone had Jack sighing in relief.

"Jesus, kid." He exclaimed softly, making his way closer to Mac's bed. "What the hell'd they do to you?"

"Don't be mad." Mac said, voice rough, barely above a whisper. "Please, don't be mad."

Jack's heart clenched at the words, knowing that they were caused by pain and exhaustion but hating that Mac had worried about how Jack would react on top of everything else on his overflowing plate.

"Naw," Jack smiled down at his partner, reaching out a hand to gently card through his blonde hair. "Not mad at you, pal. The soon-to-be-dead men who did this to ya? Sure, mad as hell at them, but not you. Never you."

Mac sighed in relief, knowing that he should be upset with whoever had went behind his back and told Jack what had happened, but deciding to soak in the comfort of having his partner back for the time being.

"Hurtin'?" Jack's voice cut through the quiet.

Mac shook his head no, just the tiniest movement, and upon seeing the disbelief on Jack's face, explained. "Apparently, getting captured and beat up results in the good stuff." He raised his free arm, drawing his partner's attention back to the IV.

"This isn't beat up, bud." Jack replied. "This is beat to hell, went ten rounds with the devil himself." He stopped himself with a sigh. He was furious, but that wasn't going to help Mac any.

"Give me the run down." Jack's voice came through again and Mac opened the eyes he didn't remember closing. "How bad ya hurt?"

"Where do you want me to start?" Mac asked.

"Don't answer my question with another question." Jack ordered with a fond smile. "I don't care. Head to toe, alphabetically, most to least painful, doesn't matter how you sort 'em, just give me the list."

"Concussion." Mac began, deciding that head to toe would be easiest. "You've see all this." He said, gesturing to his bruised face with his uninjured arm. "Got a hairline fracture somewhere on my left cheekbone."

"They broke your face?" Jack deadpanned, his fingers hovered over his partner's face for a moment before determining that there wasn't a space uninjured enough for him to touch. "That'll be funny one day. Not any time soon, but one day." He forced a smile and settled on wrapping Mac's free hand up in his own, knowing that Mac needed the physical contact as much as he did himself, though if anyone would ask, he did it to keep Mac from jarring loose the IV needle in that arm. He nodded, prompting the younger man to continue.

"They pulled my shoulder out of socket," Mac went on and Jack winced in sympathy, remembering how painful Mac's last dislocated shoulder had been. "And broke three ribs."

"All on your left side?" Jack asked, wondering how he was laying on his side comfortably with broken ribs.

"Yeah. They liked to kick." Mac admitted. "That's kinda why I'm still here and not home already. Doc thinks I may have a bruised kidney from all those kicks."

"Oh, you were just gonna save that little bit of info for last?" Jack asked. "Hope to 'forget' about the possible internal bleeding, life threatening part of your diagnosis?"

"Hey, you said I could give you the list in whatever order I wanted." Mac reminded him. "And its not like I left it out completely. Besides, they already did the tests, no internal bleeding or anything. They just wanted me to stay here for twenty-four hours as a precaution."

"Yeah, well none of this would have happened if I had been there." Jack declared.

"You don't know that." Mac argued. "They could have gotten the drop on our team just as easily as they did that one. And their guys did everything they could to get me back as soon as they could."

"I still should have been there." Jack said softly. "You were hurt, and I wasn't there."

"Even if you hadn't gone on that other mission you wouldn't have went with me. They needed an EOD specialist, there was no way of knowing I would need backup. And besides," Mac twisted his hand in Jack's grip to give the older man's fingers a squeeze. "You're here now."

Jack smiled, wiping his free hand across his tired face. "Although, maybe you shouldn't be," Mac teased. You look awful and smell worse. Maybe you should go home, shower, get some sleep."

"No way, brother. You're here, I'm here. I ain't leavin' this place till you do." He propped his booted feet up on the edge of his partner's bed. "I think maybe we could both use some shut eye though."

"Deal." Mac agreed, falling into an almost immediate slumber, Jack's hand still wrapped around his own.

They were still sleeping like that nearly two hours later when Maddy silently snuck into Mac's room to check on her two agents. In that moment she realized that there was no separating Mac and Jack. They were not t just partners or friends, they were two halves of a whole, the perfect yin and yang. Hell, their names even rhymed. They were the truest definition of a team. Despite missions, and rules, and direct orders, they would always return to each other. Like a compass needle pointing North, that was simply their nature. And who was she to mess with the natural order of things.

So there ya go! Hope you enjoyed, let me know what you thought, and HAPPY (ALMOST) SEASON TWO!!!!!!


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